Climate Liberalism examines the potential and limitations of classical-liberal approaches to pollution control and climate change. Some successful environmental strategies, such as the use of catch-shares for fisheries, instream water rights, and tradable emission permits, draw heavily upon the classical liberal intellectual tradition and its emphasis on property rights and competitive markets. This intellectual tradition has been less helpful, to date, in the development or design of climate change policies.
Climate Liberalism aims to help fill the gap in the academic literature examining the extent to which classical-liberal principles, including an emphasis on property rights, decentralized authority and dynamic markets, can inform the debate over climate-change policies. The contributors in this book approach the topic from a range of perspectives and represent multiple academic disciplines. Chapters consider the role of property rights and common-law legal systems in controlling pollution, the extent to which competitive markets backed by legal rules encourage risk minimization and adaptation, and how to identify the sorts of policy interventions that may help address climate change in ways that are consistent with liberal values.

Jonathan H. Adler is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches courses in environmental, administrative and constitutional law.

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Pollution and Natural Rights - Billy Christmas.- Chapter 3: Do Libertarians Have Anything Useful to Contribute to Climate Change Policy?.- Chapter 4: Climate Change Adaptation through the Prism of Individual Rights.- Chapter 5: Common Law Tort as a Transitional Regulatory Regime.- Chapter 6: Libertarianism, Pollution and the Limits of Court Adjudication.- Chapter 7: Complexities of Climate Governance in Multidimensional Property Regimes.- Chapter 8: Climate Change & Class Actions.- Chapter 9: Nature and the Firm.- Chapter 10: Permission, Prohibition & Dynamism.- Chapter 11: Market Solutions to Large Number Environmental Problem-Induced Changes in Risk Distributions.- Chapter 12: A Classical Liberal Case for Target-Consistent Carbon Pricing.- Chapter 13: Climate Change, Political Economy, and the Problem of Comparative Institutions Analysis.- Chapter 14: The Social Cost of Carbon, Humility, and Overlapping Consensus on Climate Policy.